Is Bury the best suspect we have?

[C. F. Leon]

Excuse me, but isn't this supposed to be a Bury thread- not yet ANOTHER "Cross done did it" thread?

[Abby Normal]

Excuse me, but isn't this supposed to be a Bury thread- not yet ANOTHER "Cross done did it" thread?

yup. I tried too. i was ignored lol

[Geddy2112]

yup. I tried too. i was ignored lol

Remember all roads (threads) lead to Lechmere...

[John Wheat]

Remember all roads (threads) lead to Lechmere...

It's ridiculous really Cross gets so many threads and there is nothing whatsoever to suggest he was Jack and other suspects who may have been Jack get there threads highjacked by Lechmereians.

[Lewis C]

Newbie mentioned that he had more to say on the subject, and I ask of him that if he decides to do that, please do it in a Lechmere thread.

[rjpalmer]

Remember all roads (threads) lead to Lechmere...

In Newbie's defense, this thread invites comparisons between suspects. How is one to answer John's question, "Is Bury the best suspect?" without mentioning other suspects? There would be no point of reference.

Perhaps the whole premise of the thread is flawed. It's not really a Bury thread; it's a "my suspect is better than yours" thread, which (in my opinion) has limited value anyway.

Still, if one wants to go into great detail about a marginal subject like Tom Cross's alleged alcoholism, it's probably best to do it elsewhere.

[Lewis C]

In Newbie's defense, this thread invites comparisons between suspects. How is one to answer John's question, "Is Bury the best suspect?" without mentioning other suspects? There would be no point of reference.

Perhaps the whole premise of the thread is flawed. It's not really a Bury thread; it's a "my suspect is better than yours" thread, which (in my opinion) has limited value anyway.

Still, if one wants to go into great detail about a marginal subject like Tom Cross's alleged alcoholism, it's probably best to do it elsewhere.

Good points, RJ.

[Mark J D]

Not one word on my hypothesis that Cross sexually molesting his elder daughter was why she was living with her grandma?
There perhaps are other possibilities, but none that easily come to mind: ....schooling (probably not)? employment?

I have two vague possibilities in my 'devil's advocate' list...
(i) She helped look after her grandma's ageing and possibly ailing bigamous third husband (who died in 1889, IIRC);
(ii) She was useful in helping her grandma set up the family's cats' meat business (which we only start hearing about a couple of years later, but was likely begun earlier than that).

But my instinct -- like yours! -- is to say that the eldest daughter probably stayed with Gran for her own protection. I don't read a 'paragon' vibe in this family, at all, anywhere, ever.

Bests,

Mark D.

[Herlock Sholmes]

To keep going back over Cross’s family history in ever increasingly desperate attempts to turn him into a suspect carries no value. We have absolutely zero reason to suspect him. There are many mysteries in this case but one of the biggest is that there are people out there who see him as a viable suspect. It’s long past time that Cross got what he deserves; silence. A complete refusal to consider him a suspect. A child could see that he was a witness and nothing more. The ‘case’ against him has been invented by people with a vested interest in manipulating evidence and is continued by either the terminally gullible or people who just want to annoy those with a legitimate interest in the case. The whole Cross case reeks with dishonesty. It’s about time that people stopped dragging this subject through the mud for reasons of their own self-aggrandisement. If anyone thinks that Cross was the ripper then I can only suggest that they find another interest.

[C. F. Leon]

In Newbie's defense, this thread invites comparisons between suspects. How is one to answer John's question, "Is Bury the best suspect?" without mentioning other suspects? There would be no point of reference.

Perhaps the whole premise of the thread is flawed. It's not really a Bury thread; it's a "my suspect is better than yours" thread, which (in my opinion) has limited value anyway.

Still, if one wants to go into great detail about a marginal subject like Tom Cross's alleged alcoholism, it's probably best to do it elsewhere.

That was my intended point, RJ. It's one thing to respond to a post "Is Bury the Best Suspect (That) We Have?" with "No, because ...". It's another to repeatedly refer a relative's POSSIBLE medical history, which has only a tangential secondary connection at best with the original point.

Please do not hijack other people's threads with your own issues. Admin has said that they will be hard-ass about this.

[C. F. Leon]

Remember all roads (threads) lead to Lechmere...

How about all roads are "Crossed"?

Sorry. It's late. I'm sitting here, nursing a glass of milk & root beer...

sigh. The Kid doesn't get my jokes either...

[Geddy2112]

If anyone thinks that Cross was the ripper then I can only suggest that they find another interest.

Also the Yanks desperate for it to be HH Holmes and the folk who are convinced about the Shawl/DNA results.

[Lombro2]

I can see why people like to have a solid suspect they believe in. It means they can logically, if incorrectly, claim to be an authority on the subject. They figured it out and know who did it. If so, they are logically an authority on a case which we’re supposed to be here to solve.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Also the Yanks desperate for it to be HH Holmes and the folk who are convinced about the Shawl/DNA results.

Absolutely, Jeff Mudgett..another embarrassment.

[Newbie]

Thomas Cross most likely died from a form of kidney disease, not heart disease.

That he died from kidney failure seems irrefutable: uremia, if that designation is accurate, being the syndrome caused by the excessive buildup in blood toxins, where the kidneys are no longer able to function sufficiently to remove them. The symptoms of uremia are nausea, vomiting, weight loss, pruritus (skin conditions), seizures, convulsions, coma, etc …. Cross should have experienced some of these well before the final 3 days, which is probably when the worst of the symptoms kicked in.


What type of kidney disease did he die from? Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the gradual loss of kidney function over a long time and can result from several different conditions, like high blood pressure or diabetes, as opposed to a single specific event. Symptoms of the disease become manifest once the % of functioning kidneys drops below a threshold (25 %). You only need one functioning kidney to live, should it be healthy. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is where a single specific event leads to kidney damage, such as the ingestion of a toxin, or the incursion of an infectious disease. This form of kidney disease can lead to death, but is also often reversible. The diagnosis of fatty degeneration was the belief that the kidney disease had been developing for many years. My impression is that Cross died from chronic kidney disease …. so, what were the underlying conditions?


It was noted by Richard Bright, the great English pathologist of the era that liver degeneration accompanied kidney degeneration, a belief which could have been reflected in the absence of designating an organ of degeneration on the death certificate.


There was believed to be a close association between liver and kidney degeneration:

“My own observations have led me to conclude that, in by far the greater number of cases, Bright's disease, or fatty degeneration of the kidney, is associated with a similar fatty degeneration of the liver - George Johnson MD - 1845


This is the information we have on the death certificate of Thomas Cross.


Thomas Cross's death entry for 18th December 1869.


He died at 11 Mary Ann Street, a police constable aged 34.


The cause of death was:

• 'fatty degeneration - years
• Dropsy 5 months
• Uroemia 3 days

Certified: The informant was Margaret Low of 14 Mary Ann St. (who signed with an X)


Four things here:


First, the Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1874 in England made it mandatory for a registered medical practitioner who attended someone during their last illness, to certify the cause of death. Margaret Low is most definitely not a doctor (she would be the informant), but since the document has a cause of death, and since all doctors in England had to be registered by an 1858 parliamentary Act, one would assume the information came from a registered doctor.


Second, fatty degeneration is the etiology of the illness according to Thomas Cross’s attending physician, dropsy is considered to be the most significant of the initial symptoms, probably when Cross first sought treatment, and uremia is the final stage of the illness - a syndrome that typically occurs in the final stages of chronic kidney diseases today, although it can be the end stage for heart, liver and other forms of kidney disease.


Thirdly, other symptoms that undoubtedly existed were omitted from the certificate, as well as information directly obtained from interfacing with the patient, which quite possibly contributed to the diagnosis. We can only speculate on these matters.


Finally, Dropsy can be a sign of liver, kidney or heart disease; and although most likely to occur in kidney disease, kidney failure can result from any one of the three. It's the speed at which death resulted after initial symptoms ( 5 months) that strongly suggests chronic kidney disease. Congestive heart disease (typically a long term illness once symptoms become manifest, absent cardiac arrest), or liver disease take years to arrive at the final stage, where uremia is one of many options. Anyone of the other two could have been a comorbidity if Cross was an alcoholic: it negatively affecting each organ.


Furthermore, swelling was one of the two key symptoms of Bright’s disease - the historical antecedent to kidney diseases of today; hence, the death certificate’s emphasis on dropsy alone is further indicative of a diagnosis of kidney degeneration, and uremia was often the final stage of Bright’s disease, with the onset of convulsions, nausea, coma, etc.. Absent an autopsy or a blood test for albumin, other symptoms or information provided by Cross would have been crucial in the determination. Bright’s disease covers a grouping of kidney diseases: acute or chronic glomerular nephritis, other types of nephritis, etc… I have previously stated that the terminal disease was most likely chronic kidney disease. Did Cross inform his doctor that he had a drinking problem, or that he had Scarlet fever? Either declaration would have moved the needle towards Bright's disease.


So the question is, absent information on a single event, and with the diagnosed etiology of degenerative fatty disease, how does a 34 year old man die from chronic kidney disease? A disease that one typically finds in much older people. The once famous actress Jean Harlowe died from acute glomerular nephritis at the age of 26, and she attributed the causation to the scarlet fever she contracted as a teenager, some 10 years before; but as it turns out, Jean Harlowe was also an alcoholic, which if not the cause, contributed to the progression of her illness.


What brought on Cross’s disease at this still youthful age? Our options are alcoholism, smoking, obesity, infectious diseases of a certain type (streptococcal) occurring in childhood, malnourishment, diabetes or genetics.


Thomas Cross was a large man, but was he obese? Compared to today, there were very few obese people among the working class of London during that era. Being a PC, he wouldn’t have led a sedentary life, and obesity would have greatly affected his ability to do his job, or his consideration for employment. There is no evidence that he was obese; nor did Ma Lechmere’s family appear to be malnourished, and Cross grew up in the countryside, so I consider both of these as unlikely. Smoking? There is a well established relationship between smoking and renal disease. During that era, the working class might smoke pipes in pubs, and cigars on special occasions …. I’ll let someone else pursue this. Genetics? They always seem to contribute to health outcomes - we’ll ignore this. Type 1 diabetes? This is what I got from the National Library of Medicine:


Some degree of kidney disease in T1D is virtually universal at long durations and not declining, which has major implications for formulating health care and research strategies. ESRD (end stage renal disease) has declined, but continues to affect >25% of the population by 40 years duration

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5829956/

So, was Thomas Cross a type 1 diabetic? In the United States, the prevalence of type 1 diabetes is roughly 0.55 % of the population.


The disease was known in ancient times, and the discovery of the role of the pancreas was only known since 1889. Here is a passage from “Diabetes and the Victorian mind” relating Victorian attitudes about the disease.


Ideas about diabetes were revolutionized in 1849 by the great French physiologist Claude Bernard. After he made rabbits diabetic by pricking their brains, diabetes in England came to be thought of as neurological, even psychological in origin. British diabetics (often men) were prevented from working or becoming excited, treated in the same manner as women who were diagnosed with hysteria. Meanwhile, discoveries in thermodynamics were applied to diabetics and menstruating women. People were assumed to be closed systems, wasting energy that couldn't be replenished. Thus, diabetics had to stay still if they wanted to live and women had to stay away from education to have the energy to produce children

https://www.amphilsoc.org/publications/male-hysteria-diabetes-and-victorian-mind

It’s unlikely Thomas Cross had it, and if he did, he wouldn’t have joined the police force.


So, it comes down to alcoholism or some specific infectious disease like Scarlett fever, that Cross might have incurred in his youth - or, as in Jean Harlowe’s case, a combination of the two, perhaps. During the year of Cross’s demise, the medical community was disposed to believe that alcoholism was the primary cause of Bright’s disease: From our good, dear friend Dr Francis Tumblety, in his diary:


"What are its causes (Bright’s disease)?" -

"The cause of all chronic diseases are so numerous and so interwoven that it is difficult to specify any which can be regarded as special and distinct. The more common occurrence, however, of this among those who indulge in alcoholic drinks make it clear that that habit is a prominent cause of the disease. But many others doubtless exist.

Extract from - A SKETCH of the life of DR. FRANCIS TUMBLETY - Presenting an Outline of His Wonderful Career as Physician... (Published New York, 1893).


And from an article written by a W.H. Dickinson in the British Medical Journal (1872):


Nov. 23, I872.1 THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL. 573

‘ALCOHOL AS A CAUSE OF RENAL DISEASE’.

BY W. H. DICKINSON, M.D.Cantab., F.R.C.P.,

Senior Assistant-Physician and Lecturer on Pathology, St. George's Hospital;

Physician to the Hospital for Sick Children ; Corresponding Member

of the Academy of Medicine, New York ; etc.

“In my work on Albuminuria, I ventured to bring forward some facts

which seemed to show almost conclusively that alcohol is not so prolific a source of renal disease as has been thought

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25233440?seq=1

So, alcoholism was thought to be a prominent cause of Bright’s disease, rightly or wrongly; but Richard Bright also mentioned a link between scarlet fever and Bright’s disease, and during the era of 1840 to 1870 ( a portion of Cross’s childhood) scarlet fever outbreaks were a regular occurrence every 5-6 years. It would hit the slums of London hardest (up to 25% of children affected in the worst hit areas), but was still problematic in the countryside where Cross grew up. Bearing these things in mind, it would have behooved a competent physician in 1869 to question Cross about his liquor habits and his exposure to Scarlett fever - or any bacterial/viral infection considered to be related to Bright’s disease.


What happens to the kidneys when a child contracts scarlet fever, or other streptococcal bacterial infections? The infection, if left untreated, could spread to the kidneys, or an immune response could be activated in rare cases, and either has the possibility to inflict an acute kidney injury during the time of the infection. The bacteria does not remain dormant in the individual. So, the question now is what is the likelihood that this initial damage does not affect the normal function of the kidneys, but that further damage over time precipitates a kidney crisis?


Here’s an extensive study on childhood acute kidney injuries/disease conducted on Israelis entering the military, and then a follow up, where initially normal renal function was maintained, and the onset of chronic kidney disease then occurred as adults.


During 46,188,970 person-years of follow-up (mean duration of follow-up, 30.4 years), ESRD (end stage renal disease) developed in 2490 participants, yielding an incidence rate of 5.39 cases per 100,000 person-year

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1700993

.

That’s roughly a one in 3 thousand chance that a child who receives an acute kidney injury, through whatever means, will die from chronic kidney disease at the age of 34. My guess is that the alcoholism of Jean Harlowe greatly influenced the course of that disease: she also suffered from meningitis, influenza, and several other significant illnesses, which may or may not have contributed.


So, excluding some unmentioned causation, that leaves us with drink as the most likely cause, where alcoholism was a very common affliction in Victorian London, most males were binge drinkers on occasion, and a high percentage of males drank heavily. The definition of binge drinkers/heavy drinkers in the literature is: more than 4 drinks within 2 hours constitutes binge drinking, and more than 4 drinks in a day, or 14 in a week constitutes heavy drinking.


Quite frankly, the literature is mixed on the effects of alcohol on the kidneys. Some medical literature reports an indirect influence, increasing the blood pressure, dehydration - which can lead to UTIs, damaging the liver, etc, and some ascribe a direct link … the kidneys filter a low percentage of alcohol …. possibly elevated during binge drinking.


Here is a study in Japan on the comparison between the eGFR (glomerular filtration rate) for males who are light, heavy and rare drinkers: the higher the rate, the better your kidney’s health.

In conclusion, this retrospective cohort study showed that the men who were rare drinkers and current drinkers with a heavy alcohol consumption of ≥60 g/day were at a higher risk of a decline in eGFR than those of men who were occasional drinkers, suggesting that alcohol consumption was associated with the eGFR trajectory in a U-shaped fashion in men



Here is a study provided by the Mayo clinic concerning the effects of regular or binge drinking on increasing one’s chances of getting chronic kidney disease.

Compared with non-drinking, regular and occasional binge drinking were associated with a 2.2-fold (95% CI, 1.38-3.46) and a 2.0-fold (95% CI, 1.33-2.98) higher risk of CKD progression, respectively. This association was particularly evident in patients who had decreased kidney function and proteinuria.


In conclusion, alcoholism seems like the most likely causation of the dropsy and then uremia that killed Thomas Cross. If he had a acute kidney injury from a bacterial or viral infection in his youth, it would have sped it along. However, the expectation is that heavy drinking most directly affects the liver, and perhaps only indirectly the kidneys…. so the principal damage should have been to that organ. And yet, there are no identified tell tale symptoms of jaundice.


To this I have no answer that would be conclusive.